Re: "Two-track" documentation?PART II

Subject: Re: "Two-track" documentation?PART II
From: Dan Brinegar <vr2link -at- vr2link -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 01:55:06 -0700 (MST)

To try to clarify one or two points--- while veering only a few miles from
the original topic...

Perhaps a True Genius can write one thing for three different audiences and
not suck at it: but how many people really understand Einstein or Pete
Townsend (or even appreciate their messages[1])?

As a human bean, I am only marginally less ignorant, lazy or stupid than
the worst pain-in-the-butt techsupport-nightmare caller: I, too, had at one
time not the faintest clue how to

* repair a carburetor,
* log on to Amurrikin O-line,
* read a teletype by sound,
* select jeans that fit, or
* walk.

EMPATHY for the people who have to use the DreckigeZeug those smegging
engineers designed is one of those necessary characteristics for
communicating effectively... Of course, one may feel that *success* as a
techwriter depends on some entirely different characteristics, but people
disagree on days-without-rain or anchovies or run-on sentences... YMMV

At 1:38 AM +0000 12/13/99, Dan Brinegar wrote:
>NO!! Dagnabbit, Rule One is "Dear Mom..."
>
>If any old "experts" could just sit their butts down and write about a
>product so that anybody could use it, there wouldn't be a need for
>techsupport, or training courses, or techwriters, or rewriters to come in
>and resurrect a slapped-together project.
>
>Accuracy, clarity and suitability-for-task and -audience are all equally
>important.
>

[1] E=mC^2 versus "There once was note pure and easy..." mean the same
thing to me --- others may disagree and even feel one or both messengers
musta been pretentious idiots *shrug*

-------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Brinegar Information Developer/Research Droid

"Leveraging Institutional Memory through Contextual
Digital Asymptotic Approximations of Application Processes
suited to utilization by Information-Constrained,
Self-Actualizing Non-Technologists."

vr2link -at- vr2link -dot- com CCDB Vr2Link
http://www.vr2link.com Performance S u p p o r t Svcs.






References:
Re: "Two-track" documentation?: From: Dan Brinegar

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